Yorkshire Pudding
by The Landlady
Summary: The welcoming feast. The beginning of the trios seventh year, and a new student has come. A girl from America surprise surprise but halfway through pudding the differences in British and American english ends up in a misunderstanding and a huffy American.


Yorkshire Pudding  
Oneshot

It was the welcoming feast, all the school was seated except for the new  
first years, who hadn't arrived yet. The great hall was decorated as  
usual with glittering golden goblets and plates, and the stars in the  
"sky" above were twinkling merrily.

Martha Dawson walked confidently up to the Gryffindor table and sat  
down opposite Harry, Ron and Hermione, all three of which looked  
confusedly at her. Neither of them had ever seen her before. It was Ron  
who broke the silence.

"Who're you?"

Hermione looked at him reproachfully "Very polite, aren't you?" Ron,  
however, ignored her, and continued to look at the girl expectantly.

"My name is Martha, I'm a new student here." Said the girl with an  
American accent.

"Oh yes, of course," said Hermione with a smile "You're the new  
American girl, aren't you? You'll be in the same year as us."

Harry and Ron exchanged looks of confusion, "We never knew there was  
going to be a new student," said Harry with a slight frown.

"That's because you don't listen." groaned Hermione in exasperation  
"McGonagall told us, remember?"

"Alright, alright, keep your hair on!" Snapped Ron.

Meanwhile, the girl had been staring at Harry. "You're Harry Potter!"  
she exclaimed. A few people looked over at them curiously.

"Um, yeah, I am." Said Harry looking down at his plate. He never had  
been very comfortable with people staring at him.

"Oy, Harry," muttered Ron, elbowing him in the side "Take a shufti at  
that bloke up there, must be the new defense teacher."

Harry's head snapped up as he looked over at the staff table, sure  
enough, there was a new face there amongst the familiar, a bespectacled  
, slightly weedy looking man with dark brown hair, and an amused smile  
playing on his lips as he sat talking to Prof. Flitwick.

"They've officially sacked Snape then." said Harry with a scowl. The  
girl looked at him.

"Who's Snape?" She asked looking at each of them in turn.

"The worlds biggest git." answered Ron savagely.

After the first years had been sorted the feast began.

"Pass the bangers would you?" Ron shot at Martha.

"The what? Sorry?" Said Martha confused.

"The bangers." Repeated Ron, but when she still looked confused, he  
said "The sausages."

"Oh right...here you are."

"Ta."

"Wonder what the new teacher's like." said harry thoughtfully, pouring  
gravy over his yorkshire pudding. Just then Seamus leant over to them  
and joined in the conversation. "Me mam says that he's an unspeakable, used to work for the ministry,  
but took up the teaching post, as a favour to McGonagall, He looks  
rather dodgy to me though." he added looking over at the staff table  
suspiciously.

Ron laughed, spraying them all with bits of toad-in-the-hole. "Dodgy?  
He looks a bit gormless to me." He chuckled.

"Who're you talking about?" asked Dean, who was munching on a cadburys  
cream egg, which he had just pulled out of his pocket.

"Macho man over." said Ron jabbing his thumb in the teachers direction.  
Dean sniggered and returned to his conversation with Neville.

"Hey, Harry," Said Ron suddenly, struck by a sudden thought "How did  
you get that fanged frisby back, it was confiscated, right?" 

"Nicked it from Snapes office." grinned Harry mischievously.

"You've got a lot of bottle, mate." said Ron looking admiringly at  
Harry, while Hermione huffed at them indignantly. "You could of asked for it back first, you know" said Hermione looking  
at them with narrowed eyes "He might of given it back to you." "Not bloody likely." snorted Ron. "Anyway, I've got my own, I smuggled  
it past Filch... actually, it's rubbish, I might try and flog it to a  
first year... Ron trailed off, looking over at a group of first years.

"Just then, Hagrid caught Harry's eye. "Alright, Harry?" he boomed,  
waving over at him with his pink brolly.

"Hiya Hagrid!" said Harry, waving back.

"Come down ter me hut tomorrow evenin' for a cuppa. I've got summat ter  
show yer three. I've had him delivered from Leicestershire."

Harry looked at the others "He's off his trolley if he thinks that we  
want to associate with any more of his pets, not after Norbert, or  
Fluffy, or the skrewts." They all shuddered. "The RSPCA don't know how  
good they have it."

"Well, all we need to do is go down and have a look at this nasty new  
pet of his, leg it back up to school, avoid Hagrid for a fortnight, and  
Bob's your uncle." said Ron grinning, "piece of cake."

"You're forgetting something there, Ron," sighed Harry "We've got care  
of magical creatures, remember? But I s'pose we can always bunk off..."

Just then the puddings arrived.

"Want some spotted dick?" Ron asked Martha.

"Um, no thanks." said the girl with a slightly repulsed look on her face.

"Suit yourself." shrugged Ron, dolloping huge portions of the rich  
steamy pudding onto his and Harry's plates, then added custard for good  
measure.

"We can't let Hagrid down, you know." said Hermione in a defeated voice  
"We've got to make an effort. This new creature can't be all that bad."

"Yeah, all of Hagrids previous pets have been cute and fluffy, really  
cuddly they were." said Ron rolling his eyes.

"We could get him pissed on booze, I s'pose" said Harry "then convince  
him to get rid of whatever it is..." Martha looked at him with a slight  
frown

"Pissed? You want to get him angry?"

"Nah, just drunk." replied Ron in an off hand way.

"It won't be that bad" said Hermione, though she had a rather worried  
look on her face.

"Speak for yourself Hermione." said Ron "I'd rather parade round the  
great hall starkers at breakfast, than visit any more of his monster mates."

Suddenly Harry noticed a new shiny badge on Neville's chest.

"You're head boy then, Neville?" Harry said, looking at the badge.  
Neville went slightly pink, and muttered "Yeah." but he looked rather  
pleased with himself.

"Nice one!" exclaimed Ron grinning over at Neville. "You can dish out  
detention to all the Slytherins now."

"Neville won't abuse his power, he could just as well put you in  
detention you know." snapped Hermione.

"Put a sock in, it will you." yawned Ron "Blimey, I'm knackered."

Nearly Headless Nick came floating along the table.

"You want to avoid going into the entrance hall directly after the end  
of the feast." said Nick in a sombre voice. "Peaves is there ready to  
bombard students with dungbombs.

"What's got him so hacked off this time?" asked Harry.

"Oh the usual." replied Nick in a bored voice. "He wasn't allowed to  
attend the feast. But we all know Peaves, he's the politest dinner  
guest, really well behaved and well mannered."

"Nutter." said Ron reaching over and grabbing a handful of sweets from  
the middle of the table "doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone,  
except maybe Fred and George..."

"I wouldn't eat them if I were you Ron." warned Hermione, indicating  
the sweets that were half way to Ron's mouth.

"What're you on about" sniggered Ron "Bad for my teeth, or something?"

"Eat them then... if you want to start puking all over the table." 

And sure enough, when Ron, Harry, Neville and Dean took a closer look  
at hem, they turned out to be puking pastilles. Ron through them away  
with disgust.

"Cheers Hermione. Wonder why the house elves put them here? One would  
have to be really thick to think that people would want to eat puking  
pastilles... I don't know owt about house elves, but I do know they're  
not that mental.

"Seamus has gone awol." observed Harry, when he noticed that Seamus had  
disappeared from the hall.

"He's probably snogging lavender in some broom closet." muttered Dean  
with a smirk. "Personally, I don't give an aylsebury duck what me mate  
gets up to... but he could of contained himself 'till the end of the  
feast." Then he leaned forward and said to Harry "I 'eard that your  
uncle kicked you out of the 'ouse this summer, when you returned from  
school early... that geezer seems like a right jam roll. There was a  
picture of 'im in the Daily Prophet, rather overweight, your uncle,  
'e's a bit of an Native New Yorker innee?

"Excuse me! What's wrong with Native New Yorkers? You're being very  
rude about Americans, you know! We're not all fat!" said Martha with a  
frown. They all looked at her questioningly.

"Sorry, but what are you talking about?" asked Dean at length when no  
one else answered her.

"Oh never mind." she said huffily, and then stood up and walked down  
the table to sit with some other people.

"Wonder why she got so shirty with us all of a sudden." said Harry  
poking at his treacle tart.

"Oh isn't it obvious?" snapped Hermione

"No." said the four boys simultaneously. 

"Well," continued Hermione "You should know better than to say things  
that she has no hope of understanding."

"Ooh, no wonder she wasn't so chuffed with us." said Ron suddenly  
comprehending. Well I don't fancy being in her shoes this year, she's  
gonna have a job understanding everything we say.

A/N For those of you who are not familiar with cockney rhyming slang,  
Native New Yorker Porker. Just to clear that up. ) Here are a few  
other examples: daisy roots boots, eiffel tower shower, eighteen  
pence sense, ain't it a treat street, all time loser boozer  
(pub) etc it goes on forever...there's no end to them.


End file.
